Speaker 1: From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
Speaker 1: riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
Speaker 1: learn this stuff they don't want you to know. A
Speaker 1: production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hello, and welcome back to the show. My name is Noel.
Speaker 3: Our colleague Matt is on adventures and will be returning soon.
Speaker 3: They called me Ben. We're joined as always with our
Speaker 3: super producer Dylan the Tennessee pal Facan. Most importantly, you
Speaker 3: are here. That makes this the stuff they don't want
Speaker 3: you to know. Noel, you and Dylan and I were
Speaker 3: talking a little bit off air before we started rolling
Speaker 3: about a seminal spy show called The Americans, and I
Speaker 3: think you said you've been meaning to watch it.
Speaker 2: It's on my list.
Speaker 4: There's been such a glut of really great spy shows
Speaker 4: and movies as of late, and it brought that one
Speaker 4: back up for me. But like you know, I just
Speaker 4: saw a black bag in the theater. It's is very
Speaker 4: Tinker Taylor Soldier spy kind of vibe. And The Americans,
Speaker 4: I believe it's an FX series from gosh, it's probably
Speaker 4: ten years.
Speaker 2: I always have spoken on very very highly.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I was surprised by how much I enjoyed
Speaker 3: The Americans, and I've got to check out Black Bag
Speaker 3: that's on my list as well. But you're you're absolutely
Speaker 3: correct there has been this uptick in espionage story spy
Speaker 3: thrillers because they're great, you know, they're they're candy for
Speaker 3: the mind. Even now as we realize a lot of
Speaker 3: spy stuff that you read in fiction or you see
Speaker 3: in film, it's entertaining, but it's not real mostly well, and.
Speaker 4: I think we positive, maybe even on our recent episode
Speaker 4: on why so many spies are getting caught, that may
Speaker 4: will be a crossover between the zeitgeist of the spy
Speaker 4: thriller and all of this kind of you know, spies
Speaker 4: in the news of late Yeah.
Speaker 3: I think you're absolutely onto something there, because maybe the
Speaker 3: real world events are informing what we see in fiction.
Speaker 3: And as a result, we got together, you and Matt
Speaker 3: and I were talking about providing at least one example
Speaker 3: of a genuine blockbuster spy conspiracy, the type of thing
Speaker 3: that should ordinarily only exist in the world of fiction.
Speaker 3: But we're going to dive into the true events that
Speaker 3: inspired the hit TV show The Americans. This is the
Speaker 3: tale of Operation Ghost Stories.
Speaker 4: What a cool name right, so, but spooky, let's take
Speaker 4: a quick worry from our sponsor and will jump right in.
Speaker 3: Here are the facts. Would you ever be a sleeper agent?
Speaker 2: I would be a sleepy agent?
Speaker 3: Me too, man, he too especially great?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think so.
Speaker 4: It seems like a lot of trouble, a lot of effort,
Speaker 4: you know, for potentially just getting killed and then disavowed exactly.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a high risk and we don't know whether
Speaker 3: there are high rewards. To understand the depth of this
Speaker 3: bizarre story, we have to talk about what it means
Speaker 3: to actually be a sleeper agent. James Bond is not
Speaker 3: this kind of person.
Speaker 4: James Bond was in it for the babes man like
Speaker 4: almost entirely. He wasn't even a very good spot like
Speaker 4: in the movies anyway, right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he was terrible. He was going around. First off,
Speaker 3: he was dat he was drinking constantly, if you've ever
Speaker 3: seen the studies of how often he drinks in film.
Speaker 3: And then he was telling everybody his real name all
Speaker 3: the time.
Speaker 4: And maybe he thought maybe he could confuse the movie
Speaker 4: said the last name first, and then the Bond James Bond.
Speaker 2: Wait a minute, who is this person?
Speaker 3: To your point, He was also very sloppy in his
Speaker 3: personal behavior, hitting on anything with a pulse, which.
Speaker 4: Guy had mad STDs, just saying he was spreading them around.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's really hopefully was using protection, but that's a
Speaker 3: great point he hit.
Speaker 4: Protection for him would be his sweet little nine millimeters.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and this we're bringing up this, you know, most
Speaker 3: famous of fictional spies, because we want to contrast it
Speaker 3: with actual sleeper agents. These folks put so much effort
Speaker 3: into appearing really boring, like super if Beije was a person.
Speaker 3: They want to be a beige.
Speaker 2: All right, for sure.
Speaker 4: It's the whole ability to blend in and really quickly
Speaker 4: lest some James bond heads in the crowd yell at me.
Speaker 2: James didn't use a nine millimeter.
Speaker 4: He used a Walter PP that really cool little compact
Speaker 4: gun that he was always posing, you know he was using.
Speaker 3: Yeah, out of all his gadgets, he loved that little gun.
Speaker 2: Really. Yeah.
Speaker 3: These these sleeper agents, they infiltrate communities and workplaces. They
Speaker 3: go about a day to day list of routines and
Speaker 3: activities just the same way anybody else would. And because
Speaker 3: they're here's the thing, they're usually not doing any spy
Speaker 3: stuff for years or decades.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right. They are playing the long game very slowly.
Speaker 4: As we mentioned in our recent Spy episode or Spies
Speaker 4: Getting Caught episode. They move their way through the ranks
Speaker 4: of society, whether it be socially or you know, flitting
Speaker 4: around between different government or industrial circles and just trying
Speaker 4: to you know, win friends and influence people.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and then years or decades down the road, once
Speaker 3: they've established all these relationships and associations and connections, they
Speaker 3: might get a signal and should the need arise, they
Speaker 3: can be activated by their handler.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: And this isn't Mansheurian candidate type activation though, who knows,
Speaker 4: maybe that is a thing. But this is literally some
Speaker 4: sort of covert message that has transmitted to this individual
Speaker 4: that causes them to leap into the endgame portion of
Speaker 4: their plan, whether it be acquiring some sort of device
Speaker 4: you know, photographs, compromant, whatever.
Speaker 3: Right, Yeah, it could be as simple as actively surveilling
Speaker 3: a target, or like you said, getting maybe the new
Speaker 3: plans for a jet or some other needo gadget. May
Speaker 3: nuclear technology for sure, Yeah, that's a great example. Or
Speaker 3: internal records from a government agency at the more extreme
Speaker 3: end of the spectrum. They might be assigned to terminate
Speaker 3: an individual, or to even commit acts of terrorism.
Speaker 2: Yeah, terrorism, they wouldn't.
Speaker 3: Call it that though, with no no, I don't know
Speaker 3: what they would call it. Any number of euphemisms, right,
Speaker 3: So exactly everything escalates at that point. Now, in the
Speaker 3: ideal situation for these folks, you want the agent to
Speaker 3: be able to maintain their cover after whatever task they're
Speaker 3: activated for. But sometimes you are past a point of
Speaker 3: no return, so the act you commit may burn your identity,
Speaker 3: and that means you either get caught, like we're saying
Speaker 3: at the top, or you have to be rescued exfiltrated
Speaker 3: back to your home organization. It sounds so insane, but
Speaker 3: it's important to note this really can happen. And one
Speaker 3: knock on consequence of this is it leads to an
Speaker 3: enormous amount of paranoia for the people in power.
Speaker 2: Well as it should.
Speaker 4: I mean, they know what they're up to, you know.
Speaker 4: I only imagine that the enemy, or at least the
Speaker 4: folks on the other side, are up to the same thing,
Speaker 4: and god forbid, they're better at it than us.
Speaker 3: Right right, And this I like that point because maybe
Speaker 3: it's a fear of inadequacy. On some level, there's a lot.
Speaker 2: Of insecurity and an international intelligence.
Speaker 4: Yeah, there's a lot of For all that bravado and swagger,
Speaker 4: they're all just you know, like worrying that the other
Speaker 4: guys have better toys than they do.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there's a lot of insecurity in the world of
Speaker 3: security and true on many levels. Actually, yes, yeah, I
Speaker 3: agree with you. This is this leads us to some
Speaker 3: historical precedence. When the paranoia goes too far, you end
Speaker 3: up with mass hysteria outbreaks like the infamous Red scares.
Speaker 3: This is where the authority is carry Yeah, they go
Speaker 3: completely overboard. Anybody can be a spy, just like during
Speaker 3: the Inquisition. Anyone could be a witch.
Speaker 2: Totally. Yeah, And once anyone can your enemy, everyone is
Speaker 2: your enemy. You're right, You see or at least you
Speaker 2: see your.
Speaker 4: Enemy in everything or in everyone, And it can really
Speaker 4: lead to some serious spiraling when you can start mixing
Speaker 4: in propaganda, misinformation and just hatred and othering. It really
Speaker 4: can be a pretty nasty situation pretty quickly, oh yeah,
Speaker 4: very quickly. The US has had more than one Red Scare.
Speaker 4: Red Scare is an era marked by a groundswell of
Speaker 4: public fear and anxiety, in this case over the supposed
Speaker 4: rise of communist or socialist forces. I'm picturing like an
Speaker 4: eighties you know, Schwarzenegger action movie or something around, like,
Speaker 4: you know, fighting the Russians or something, and somebody using
Speaker 4: the catchphrase you just got red scared.
Speaker 3: I love it. Let's yeah, let's put that on the books. Actually,
Speaker 3: let's make that a thing.
Speaker 2: Why not?
Speaker 4: To your point, Ben, that's right, the multiple red scares
Speaker 4: of very I guess there were different shades of red
Speaker 4: and its Britannican notes the first one of these red
Speaker 4: scares of varying shades, I guess the first occurred from
Speaker 4: nineteen seventeen to nineteen twenty, and this is amid an
Speaker 4: increase in the organizing of labor forces, labor unions, immigration, urbanization,
Speaker 4: and industrialization. The second period Britannican notes, also called McCarthyism.
Speaker 2: You know about that one. That one was real red
Speaker 2: scary after.
Speaker 4: US Senator Joseph McCarthy, took place from roughly nineteen forty
Speaker 4: seven to nineteen fifty four. And that's the classic example
Speaker 4: of where we were seeing our enemies in even among
Speaker 4: our friends.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, this is bonkers. So in each of these
Speaker 3: cases they just mentioned, we see a clear pattern of overreach.
Speaker 3: During the first Red Scare, the Attorney General at the time,
Speaker 3: a guy named a Mitchell Palmer, led a brutal series
Speaker 3: of raids that were probably unconstitutional against individuals who were
Speaker 3: usually going to be foreign born immigrants and for one
Speaker 3: reason or another they were suspected of being anarchist or
Speaker 3: communist or a radical leftist.
Speaker 2: Sorry, dude, the headshake used to do. Just in the clock.
Speaker 4: I mean, we're kind of living through another one of
Speaker 4: these eras right now. Second, just you know, different flavor,
Speaker 4: I guess of enemy. But yeah, we are seeing some
Speaker 4: serious overreach from this administration of targeting individuals for just
Speaker 4: something as simple as maybe having a different opinion, you know,
Speaker 4: some someone is outspoken against the administration, and then using
Speaker 4: some of these dog whistle kind of tactics of like,
Speaker 4: you know, illegal immigrants who are violent criminals to just
Speaker 4: get rid of someone that you don't like.
Speaker 3: Right, and it will eventually, at least historical precedent shows
Speaker 3: us that kind of overreach will eventually start touching US citizens.
Speaker 2: As well, touching you touching people.
Speaker 3: So sweet, Caroline about it toughly.
Speaker 2: And not to be alarmist or anything.
Speaker 4: I'm certainly not trying not to loose sleep over this
Speaker 4: kind of stuff, but it's really hard to not see
Speaker 4: the parallels when you look at these kinds of stories,
Speaker 4: to not see the parah I did not see that coming, jokesters.
Speaker 3: So it is likely in the Red Scares that some
Speaker 3: of these folks were genuine assets, or they genuinely did
Speaker 3: want to commit crimes, right, they were a danger to
Speaker 3: national security. But even if that's likely, it is certain
Speaker 3: that many more of the individuals targeted were just random,
Speaker 3: innocent folks. They happened to be from the wrong country, right,
Speaker 3: they went to the wrong meetings, or they knew the
Speaker 3: wrong people, even if it was just like their neighbor.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 4: During the second Red Scare, which is just after the
Speaker 4: Second World War, at the beginning of the Cold One,
Speaker 4: the Cold War, America is terrified the Soviet Union might
Speaker 4: turn the entire world communists. That was kind of that,
Speaker 4: I hope I'm using this term correct. The fade to
Speaker 4: complete kind of of the whole situation. It was the lynchpin,
Speaker 4: you know, Communism was the ultimate fear, and it was
Speaker 4: used in a way to maybe accomplish some other things,
Speaker 4: and to get rid of some inconvenient individuals by classifying
Speaker 4: them potentially as communists. That's what McCarthy was all about
Speaker 4: with his blacklisting Hollywood writers and trying to get rid
Speaker 4: of people who might speak ill of him and his party.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was very much a thing where just like
Speaker 3: the days of the Inquisition, That's why we call it
Speaker 3: a witch hunt, people had already taken it as a
Speaker 3: given that the halls of power were riddled with reds.
Speaker 3: And Joseph McCarthy, who was if whether or not he
Speaker 3: genuinely believed his claims, he was definitely an opportunist leveraging
Speaker 3: that public fear and anxiety. So our buddy Heavy Joe
Speaker 3: starts claiming that their communist sleeper agents everywhere in the government.
Speaker 3: He went nuts. He said, I have a list of
Speaker 3: known Soviet assets in the Department of State, and we
Speaker 3: have to investigate the CIA and a baker's dozen of
Speaker 3: other agencies. This got him crazy headlines. He got a
Speaker 3: lot of attention for it, and that probably pushed him
Speaker 3: to make increasingly extravagant claims, Like if you heard him
Speaker 3: tell it, it sounds like every third or fourth government
Speaker 3: employee is just a deep cover spy waiting for the
Speaker 3: signal to blow up the White House or something.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and we got to root him out, Ben, We
Speaker 4: got to root him out out and expose them for
Speaker 4: their treasonous actions. And we know looking back on all
Speaker 4: of this that this was massive overreach. That sure, there
Speaker 4: might have been some bad actors embedded. There might have
Speaker 4: been a few Communists trying to spoil the Buncher, ruin
Speaker 4: him in the America Party, but it wasn't like he described,
Speaker 4: and it was used in such a way, as weaponized,
Speaker 4: as darisay, in such a way where a lot of
Speaker 4: innocent people got had their lives ruined.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, because you can't really, you can't really recover from
Speaker 3: these kinds of accusations, even if they're disproven, Right, it's
Speaker 3: still a blemish on your career. So tons of innocent
Speaker 3: people like you said no, they lost their jobs. There
Speaker 3: were very few actual convictions and peak behind the curtain, Yeah, right,
Speaker 3: who saw that come in? For a long time, we
Speaker 3: have been we'll spoil it too much, But we've been
Speaker 3: speculating with some of our colleagues on doing an episode
Speaker 3: entirely focused on the House on American Activities Committee or you.
Speaker 4: Know, we should do we should get the huak to
Speaker 4: a girl to come talk to us about.
Speaker 2: I'm sorry, I had to do it. I had to
Speaker 2: do it. Do you think we can leeve God can
Speaker 2: judge me. I don't know we can do. I think
Speaker 2: she might be available.
Speaker 4: I think you know what though, I actually heard that
Speaker 4: she got cast as herself in a movie.
Speaker 3: Well that's great, man, Yeah it was.
Speaker 4: It was a big Hollywood job too, So you know,
Speaker 4: I hope she's okay. That whole meme coin thing really
Speaker 4: threw her career into a tizzy. She was doing so well,
Speaker 4: just coasting on that hawk Tua good will, and then.
Speaker 2: Had to get into crypto, never get into crypto.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I feel like she was misled, oh no question.
Speaker 4: But she allowed herself to be the face of this
Speaker 4: thing that was a genuine, you know, helping dump pump
Speaker 4: what do they call it a rug pull? Yes, pump
Speaker 4: and dump scam and then just sort of vanished. So
Speaker 4: it just I don't know, it was just it just
Speaker 4: wasn't great. But anyway, we will, we will welcome you
Speaker 4: with open arms. Who Walktua girl, come talk to us
Speaker 4: about the house un American Activities Committee, and maybe another
Speaker 4: one of our colleagues will come to Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And today, with the benefit of retrospect, we can
Speaker 3: look back and take the red scares for the valuable
Speaker 3: lesson that they are. They're moral panics, They're cases of
Speaker 3: mass hysteria. This shows us the danger of sliding into paranoia.
Speaker 3: And when you let I kind of stop quoting Incubus,
Speaker 3: when you let fear take the wheel and steer, it
Speaker 3: can lead quickly to the erosion of the rule of law.
Speaker 2: You know what I say, Ben, And I say, let
Speaker 2: Jesus take the wheel. Yeah, that's what I say.
Speaker 3: The world's best uber driver.
Speaker 2: He really is. He's so kind, good guy.
Speaker 5: Ben.
Speaker 4: I got a question, though, what a moral panic is
Speaker 4: a not a term of abuse, but it is a
Speaker 4: term used maybe after the fact or in retrospect. You
Speaker 4: wouldn't call something when you're in it or you're participating
Speaker 4: in it, a moral panic, would you, because that implies
Speaker 4: that you're overreacting, doesn't right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's often so people in say the nineties, with
Speaker 3: the Satanic panic stuff, they would they wouldn't even call
Speaker 3: satanic a moral paniciing.
Speaker 4: Know exactly what we're doing we're doing the right thing.
Speaker 4: We're getting rid of these demonic, satanic devil.
Speaker 2: Worshipers, right.
Speaker 3: Yeah. It's kind of like how no group wants to
Speaker 3: be called a cult other than that banned the cult.
Speaker 4: Do you think that history will show or will refer
Speaker 4: to some of what we're living through in this era
Speaker 4: politically as a moral panic?
Speaker 3: Absolutely?
Speaker 2: Yeah. I just want to you know, again, I'm not
Speaker 2: here to criticize anybody's political believes whatever. You know, do
Speaker 2: you but I just.
Speaker 4: I think there are some certain uh historical aspects of
Speaker 4: what's going on right now that are not going to
Speaker 4: be looked on favorable.
Speaker 3: And also, you know, regardless of which administration is in power,
Speaker 3: factions of politicians will always engage in moral panics because
Speaker 3: they're great to re election.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: It's a way of working people up into a froth,
Speaker 4: you know, and getting them to kind of a line
Speaker 4: behind a common enemy. And what better enemy than an
Speaker 4: amorphous concept that can't exist anywhere?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 3: Yeah, we love those in the US. As a matter
Speaker 3: of fact, the only one we had that wasn't super
Speaker 3: popular was the War on poverty. That one got sidelined, Yeah,
Speaker 3: war on drugs, war on terror, all the other.
Speaker 4: Ones war, they give you power to do other stuff
Speaker 4: and accomplish other like kind of off the book's aims
Speaker 4: and the idea of the war. A war on anything
Speaker 4: just means that we're always at war.
Speaker 3: Yes, yeah, very Orwellian. And so the Red Scare teaches us,
Speaker 3: or the Red scares teach us these lessons. But unfortunately,
Speaker 3: then as now, these are lessons the US seems to
Speaker 3: continually forget, and that is something that we all need
Speaker 3: to think about in the coming years.
Speaker 4: Do you think they're forgetting it or do you think
Speaker 4: they just think they're smarter than the people of the past.
Speaker 3: Properly at the top the ladder, but for the public,
Speaker 3: I think we all forget how easily people can be pushed.
Speaker 3: That's a good point, you know, that's a good point.
Speaker 4: And it's easy to forget the historical precedence, especially when
Speaker 4: you have someone speaking with such authority and such confidence,
Speaker 4: who you maybe personally have some skin in the game with,
Speaker 4: and you've tied part of your personality to this person
Speaker 4: being correct or this person representing the moral authority.
Speaker 3: Do you know what we should do? No, what do
Speaker 3: you think? Let's play just a brief clip of Joe McCarthy,
Speaker 3: so we can get the vibe as.
Speaker 5: One communist on the faculty of one universality is one
Speaker 5: communist who many One communist am the American advisors at
Speaker 5: y'all top was one Communist too many. And even if
Speaker 5: they were all one Communist in the state department, even
Speaker 5: if there are only one Communist in the state department,
Speaker 5: that will still be one Communist.
Speaker 2: I'd be behind this guy. He sounds like he knows
Speaker 2: what he's talking about.
Speaker 3: As you said, little authoritative confident, there's a ticking time, Bob,
Speaker 3: you know, high stakes.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And I think this is an interesting point that the
Speaker 4: idea of a moral panic only being seen as such
Speaker 4: in retrospect, mass hysteria, et cetera.
Speaker 2: But paranoia and prejudice aside. There are absolutely genuine conspiracies
Speaker 2: and sleeper agents at play, no question about it. And
Speaker 2: I think we've already alluded to that throughout.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we'll pause for a word from our sponsors, and
Speaker 3: then we're diving into Operation Ghost Stories. Here's where it
Speaker 3: gets crazy. All right. It's the year two thousand. Everything
Speaker 3: is different. You can just go and hang out at
Speaker 3: the airport, you know what I mean.
Speaker 4: Man, that was so cool, you could smoke on the airplane.
Speaker 4: I think we're I think we're cool with that.
Speaker 2: Isn't it weird?
Speaker 4: Though there were still they're using airplanes that still have
Speaker 4: little flippy ashtrays like on the seats. I'm only just
Speaker 4: now starting to see those go away. Have you noticed
Speaker 4: that a starting to finally, Yeah, but as recently as
Speaker 4: a few years ago, that was definitely still a thing.
Speaker 3: I always feel a little bit I wouldn't say diseased,
Speaker 3: but I feel I always clock it when I see
Speaker 3: an airplane that's old enough to still have those ash trays. Yep,
Speaker 3: And I just keep thinking, what else. I hope they
Speaker 3: have a maintenance program exactly.
Speaker 2: No, that's okay. I hadn't thought about it in a while.
Speaker 4: But I'm realizing now that I'm not seeing those as
Speaker 4: much anymore.
Speaker 2: So I think they finally passed a point where they
Speaker 2: have Okay, guys, we got to get rid of the
Speaker 2: ash trays. But it was a golden time.
Speaker 3: It was a halcyon era around this time, and the
Speaker 3: store is a bit murky. We'll see why. FBI agents
Speaker 3: learned that there are real sleeper spies from Russia in
Speaker 3: the United States. They're posing as Americans and they are
Speaker 3: you know, this is not Red Scare level stuff. They're
Speaker 3: not people who just happen to be from Moldova or
Speaker 3: Belarus or something. They are Russian intelligence officers. They have
Speaker 3: high level training, and they have ghosted into the general population.
Speaker 3: As the FBI supervisor Alan Kohler put it, they're posing
Speaker 3: as Americans to get access like Americans. They had children, friends, colleagues,
Speaker 3: even their next door neighbors. We're just like, what, Michael, No,
Speaker 3: he's the most boring guy I've met.
Speaker 2: What a sweetheart.
Speaker 4: And you know, Ben, I just wanted to take this
Speaker 4: moment to point out how what a badass and am
Speaker 4: Operation ghost Story is because it works on so many levels,
Speaker 4: Like it evokes fear and kind of spooky vibes. But
Speaker 4: so it's about a backstory. It's about being ghosting your
Speaker 4: way into this country and then having a convincing and
Speaker 4: plausible story that you are telling everybody that is forward facing,
Speaker 4: and that is believable.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And the FBI's operation, this was their name, Operation
Speaker 3: ghost Stories, was the FBI investigation of finding these folks today.
Speaker 3: I agree with I love what you're pointing out about
Speaker 3: the levels of the name because as we know, the
Speaker 3: FEDS don't always knock out a home run when it
Speaker 3: comes to naming things, but they.
Speaker 2: Did pretty well one.
Speaker 4: Yeah, honestly, it would have been even cooler if it
Speaker 4: was the Russian name for the operation, but.
Speaker 2: I'll take it.
Speaker 3: However, it would have been cooler if it was the
Speaker 3: Russian name. Yeah, that would have had some bravado, all right.
Speaker 3: So they found that of these people, there are ten
Speaker 3: that they identify in the US, and a lot of
Speaker 3: them are using stolen identities of other Americans with forged documents.
Speaker 3: They enroll at US universities, they join uh, you know,
Speaker 3: trade groups like Young Americans for blah blah blah, et cetera.
Speaker 3: And they were all they were all being ordered by
Speaker 3: So Russia has two intelligence agencies that can conflict at times,
Speaker 3: sort of like how the FBI and the CIA don't
Speaker 3: always get along. These folks are directly working for SVR,
Speaker 3: which is a Russian intelligence agency. They are tasked with
Speaker 3: getting information on, as you pointed out, nuclear weaponry. They
Speaker 3: want to figure out what the US is, what stance
Speaker 3: it has toward Iran, who's going to be the next
Speaker 3: leader of the CIA, what's really happening in Congress. You
Speaker 3: know what I mean? Like what teenagers? Is Matt Gates
Speaker 3: scoring that weekend? He wasn't in play at this point.
Speaker 4: These are important questions, Ben, and then the answer is
Speaker 4: all of them, right.
Speaker 3: This is the weirdest thing to mean. No, the FBI,
Speaker 3: we still don't know how they came across this. It's
Speaker 3: not public knowledge yet. But the FBI did not move immediately. Instead,
Speaker 3: starting around somewhere around ten two thousand, they investigated and
Speaker 3: built out the network until like twenty ten, So for
Speaker 3: a decade before arresting anybody, they investigated this and when
Speaker 3: they made their move on June twenty seventh, they got
Speaker 3: ten people in the US and then they got another
Speaker 3: let's call them honorable mentions kill.
Speaker 4: We just say that the idea of child sleeper agents
Speaker 4: is particularly interesting and troubling.
Speaker 2: And I don't think we do that. Do we do that?
Speaker 4: I don't think we have children spies in the United States.
Speaker 3: Not to my knowledge, in recent history. I think, well,
Speaker 3: I think one thing we should we do have to
Speaker 3: point out is I'm sure a kid could be this
Speaker 3: ethically fraud, but I'm sure a kid could be used
Speaker 3: as an informant device. Yes, yeah, And I know, well,
Speaker 3: from what we understand with deep cover sleeper agents from
Speaker 3: regardless of where they're from, if they have children, they're
Speaker 3: usually not letting the children in on the game. The
Speaker 3: kids are innocent bystanders.
Speaker 4: Okay, maybe all right, I'd have a hard time believing
Speaker 4: that that's true every time, but anyway.
Speaker 3: I'm sure. I mean, in the show The Americans is
Speaker 3: a light spoiler. The spies in question do have children,
Speaker 3: and a large part of the family drama piece of
Speaker 3: this is.
Speaker 4: Children finding out and they have to say, I believe
Speaker 4: I've watched the first episode or I watched no of
Speaker 4: a different thing in a movie or something where all
Speaker 4: of a sudden, it's like we've been made. We have
Speaker 4: to fly the coop. And now only now do the
Speaker 4: children know something weird.
Speaker 3: Has been going on? Right, like the Black Widow movie.
Speaker 2: That was it? Thank you Ben, that was what it was.
Speaker 2: That was exactly what it was.
Speaker 3: I mean, can you imagine just all right, It's as
Speaker 3: any parent knows, it's already tremendously stressful to shepherd your
Speaker 3: kid through adolescence and those awkward teen years. So what
Speaker 3: if on top of that, on top of all the
Speaker 3: hormones and the you know, the the challenges a young
Speaker 3: kid faces growing up. On top of all that, at
Speaker 3: some point you're probably gonna have to tell them that
Speaker 3: you're a spy to right.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And I think I was baby barking up their
Speaker 4: own tree with my initial line of questioning, because perhaps
Speaker 4: the Russians also do not do child spies. So I
Speaker 4: was not trying to be like, we have some sort
Speaker 4: of moral high ground here, but if it's being done anywhere,
Speaker 4: it's likely being done here as well.
Speaker 2: We don't know about it.
Speaker 3: So yeah, no's that's a good point, and I think
Speaker 3: it's important that you make it. But also I don't
Speaker 3: want to sound too cold war hawkish, but I do think, well,
Speaker 3: we know for a fact much deployed Russia has a
Speaker 3: different set of rules, They have a very different philosophy.
Speaker 2: I think it's entirely.
Speaker 4: Possible, and there we say plausible that there haven't been
Speaker 4: knowing uses of children for spying purposes.
Speaker 3: Uh huh, as unclean as it is the US during
Speaker 3: this multi year investigation, they started internally referring to the
Speaker 3: suspected sleeper agents as the illegals program now all at all.
Speaker 3: In twenty ten, they made eleven arrest ten we're in
Speaker 3: the US, and one was all the way out in Cyprus.
Speaker 3: That guy's really interesting. The eleventh dude, Christopher Metzos, he
Speaker 3: was sort of their money guy. He flew to the
Speaker 3: U with literal bags of money. When he got apprehended
Speaker 3: in Cyprus, he made bail, he skipped bail, he hit
Speaker 3: the wind, he totally disappeared, which is kind of hard
Speaker 3: to do in this day and age, for sure.
Speaker 4: And Ben, can I just say, I just googled child
Speaker 4: spies and there are a lot of agencies or organizations
Speaker 4: that are out there trying to prevent the use of
Speaker 4: child spies.
Speaker 3: Oh wow, so it's a known issue.
Speaker 2: Why using child's as children as spies?
Speaker 4: It's such a bad IDEA High Court rules against just
Speaker 4: for Kids law and challenge to use of children as spies.
Speaker 4: The judge ruled, despite the self evident dangers to children,
Speaker 4: the current guidance is not unlawful.
Speaker 2: This isn't America, y'all.
Speaker 3: This reminds me of a child soldier, That's what I'm saying.
Speaker 2: That's not that different.
Speaker 4: They're absolutely in danger in a similar way, even if
Speaker 4: they're not like on the front lines, like you know,
Speaker 4: killing people.
Speaker 2: They are, you know, playing a dangerous game.
Speaker 3: It's a good way to move communications too, write to
Speaker 3: use a kid as a.
Speaker 2: Courier always has been. Yeah, I mean, you know, in
Speaker 2: like old school like conflicts.
Speaker 3: And we know Afghanistan in particular has an issue with this.
Speaker 3: These folks, some of them do have kids. But the
Speaker 3: folks in the Illegals program that are the target of
Speaker 3: Operation Ghost Stories, they're all adults. Will will give you
Speaker 3: their names, and just to be clear, a lot of
Speaker 3: these names are fake. The suspects are Juan Lazarro real name,
Speaker 3: Mikhail Antoleyevich Vasenkov I butchered that one, Vicky Pelez, Donald Heathfield,
Speaker 3: real name Andre Bezlkov, Tracy Lee and Foley, very American
Speaker 3: sounding name. Her real name is Yolina Vavilova.
Speaker 2: Oh it's beautiful. I love Russian names.
Speaker 4: This child spy thing has got me going down a
Speaker 4: rabbit all then, I'm actually realizing that a lot of
Speaker 4: this is in the UK, and the language of the
Speaker 4: laws in the UK are conducive to allowing child spies,
Speaker 4: and that's what was shot down by the High courts.
Speaker 4: But if they're doing it in the UK, you know,
Speaker 4: the they're doing it here, you know it.
Speaker 3: Well, it's like assassination. If a tactic works, then everybody
Speaker 3: who can deploy that tactic is going to give it
Speaker 3: a go.
Speaker 4: You were you were listing off some names, Ben and
Speaker 4: I got I was distracted down the child spy Rabbital,
Speaker 4: but I believe you left off with Yelina Vavlova a
Speaker 4: ka Lee Ann Foley, which is your right then it
Speaker 4: sounds like aunt LeeAnne from from Durham. You know. We
Speaker 4: got Richard Murphy also very just quintessentially American name aka
Speaker 4: Vladimir Guriev Cynthia Murphy, his his wife aka Lydia Guriev.
Speaker 4: And we've got Michael Zatoli A k al Kutzik.
Speaker 3: And then Patricia Mills real name Natalia Para Verzeva. That's
Speaker 3: close to that.
Speaker 4: Well, that's easy to want to insert another ev er
Speaker 4: kind of combo in there.
Speaker 3: Para vera Zerra.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's fun to say.
Speaker 3: And then there's Mikhail Simenko and most famously Anna Chapman.
Speaker 3: We mentioned that the eleventh man out there in Cyprus
Speaker 3: who escaped around the same time, there was a Russian
Speaker 3: national who was working for Microsoft in the US. He
Speaker 3: was apprehended, and he was deported on July thirteenth, twenty ten,
Speaker 3: so a little bit before the big arrest. We got
Speaker 3: to be honest with you folks, Even just based on
Speaker 3: publicly available knowledge, this does not seem to be a
Speaker 3: red scare. It does not seem to be a witch hunt.
Speaker 3: Investigators found tons of concrete evidence that indicated motive tactics,
Speaker 3: and and they found, as we mentioned, that some of
Speaker 3: the agents functioning in his couples even had children. Maybe
Speaker 3: not because they always wanted to start a family.
Speaker 4: It's a cover, unto itself, the ultimate cover, because you like,
Speaker 4: like I think maybe the fact that we spent so
Speaker 4: much time talking about the idea of child spies and
Speaker 4: how abhorrent that would be is the whole point, because
Speaker 4: no one would suspect, you know, a lovely, loving couple
Speaker 4: with their small children, because who would do that to children?
Speaker 2: Who you know?
Speaker 3: We would? Uh we neat America? Yeah not Nolan and
Speaker 3: Dylan and myself or I don't know, Dylan. Where are
Speaker 3: you at?
Speaker 4: Which I mean you get in situations, Ben, I'm going
Speaker 4: to quote you back at.
Speaker 3: You you do get in situations. Dylan is not going
Speaker 3: on record, he's not taking the bait. Well played, mister Fagin.
Speaker 3: So okay, man, this is this is true right even
Speaker 3: we had to take pains to point out the danger
Speaker 3: as a paranoia because it can go wrong so quickly.
Speaker 3: But it looks like if you go to the DOJ
Speaker 3: and the criminal complaints, you'll see that they they nail
Speaker 3: down not just intent and targets, but they nail down
Speaker 3: the way folks communicated with each other, which I gotta
Speaker 3: tell you is just it's so cool, man, just objectively,
Speaker 3: you know, like dead drops. Haven't you ever wanted to be,
Speaker 3: you know, to like sit on opposite sides of a
Speaker 3: park bench And I do it.
Speaker 4: I do it sometimes just for funsies, just by myself
Speaker 4: and just sit there waiting for you know, my contact
Speaker 4: who never arrives. And then I go home and cry
Speaker 4: into my pillow.
Speaker 3: And what language do you cry it?
Speaker 2: I just say, yeah, yet that's Russian for now?
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, So they found that these Russian agents would
Speaker 3: communicate with their handlers or with the SVR proper using
Speaker 3: messages hidden in digital photographs or things written in actual
Speaker 3: disappearing inc Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, which is a thing we talked about the Spy
Speaker 4: Museum that we all went to and hung out at
Speaker 4: in DC.
Speaker 2: Is that where we went, Ben?
Speaker 3: Yes?
Speaker 4: Yeah, Wait there was another one though, Wait it was
Speaker 4: We haven't been to DC together, have we?
Speaker 3: No? But I think we went to that same museum,
Speaker 3: just at different times.
Speaker 4: I think it was a different time. But then there
Speaker 4: was the Mafia Museum. That was another one. But gosh,
Speaker 4: I swear we've been together, but it doesn't matter. There
Speaker 4: is an incredible spy museum where you can see a
Speaker 4: lot of the kind of tradecraft stuff that we're talking
Speaker 4: about here, like how invisible ink is made and deployed
Speaker 4: and listening devices and things like that. So if you're
Speaker 4: into this stuff and you want to see some irl,
Speaker 4: highly recommend checking that out.
Speaker 3: And these guys are using real old school stuff we
Speaker 3: talked about dead drops. They're also doing the thing, oh man,
Speaker 3: this is what are those pranks that we just have
Speaker 3: to do one day. They're doing the thing where you
Speaker 3: get two identical bags or like a valise or a
Speaker 3: suitcase and then you switch them when you meet and
Speaker 3: I love that stuff. They were also we also learned
Speaker 3: that they were gathering information to report back to Moscow
Speaker 3: about what the US planned to do in Central America,
Speaker 3: what they were internally thinking about Russian foreign policy, if
Speaker 3: there were any internal problems with the US military they
Speaker 3: can be leveraged. And then how the US handles terrorists
Speaker 3: on the internet, Like what kind of tools and toys
Speaker 3: do they apply to this? And it just gets even weirder.
Speaker 3: I don't know, should we take an ad break?
Speaker 2: Oh we must, we got we gotta meet our dead drop.
Speaker 3: We've returned.
Speaker 2: All right.
Speaker 3: The next thing is as we mentioned previously. The next
Speaker 3: thing is proving that these assets are functioning under their
Speaker 3: own free will and that they know what they're doing, right,
Speaker 3: or they're aware of their position, because it's not impossible
Speaker 3: that someone could be accidentally working for a spy group
Speaker 3: and they don't know it, you know what I mean?
Speaker 3: They just know some guy named Jeremy has blackmail on them.
Speaker 2: You know Jeremy.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know Jeremy.
Speaker 2: What's he got on you?
Speaker 3: He's got nothing on me, man, We're just old friends.
Speaker 4: That's called Jeremy's a bit of a rap scallion. He's
Speaker 4: a bit incorrigible.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he's a sort of a Maverick character. So all right,
Speaker 3: So the FBI has to prove their case in public too,
Speaker 3: because you know, we know that the FBI in the
Speaker 3: past has run into serious controversies and accusations about so
Speaker 3: called witch hunts. So a year, about a year after
Speaker 3: these arrests in twenty eleven, the FBI says, okay, everybody,
Speaker 3: here's a ton of evidence that these are actual spies.
Speaker 3: They've got documents, photos, videos backing up these allegations. And
Speaker 3: then the FBI also said, I've always said this that
Speaker 3: these agents didn't get their job done, they did not
Speaker 3: get classified info, they not you know, attain their goals,
Speaker 3: whatever those goals may be.
Speaker 4: This is the line being fed to the public. Or Okay, yeah,
Speaker 4: so don't worry about it. Everything's cool. We might have
Speaker 4: missed this for like a really really long time, but
Speaker 4: now we're on the case.
Speaker 2: Then nothing bad happened.
Speaker 3: Exactly exactly. So they said, yes, these guys did get
Speaker 3: some info, they did talk back to Russia, but mainly
Speaker 3: what they were doing is the is something we call
Speaker 3: and assessing. This is where spying turns into like a
Speaker 3: multi level marketing scheme.
Speaker 2: Okay, explain, I don't think I understand.
Speaker 3: So spotting and assessing this is where you identify a
Speaker 3: colleague like a coworker or someone you know through social circles,
Speaker 3: et cetera. And you ask yourself, could these people be
Speaker 3: vulnerable targets for baby a honeypot operation, distortion threats.
Speaker 4: Yes, blackmail, whether it be extorting you know, money or
Speaker 4: influence or whatever it might be. I guess it wouldn't
Speaker 4: be money though exclusively. It would always be some greater
Speaker 4: you know, puppet string kind of maneuver from Moscow, right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, like access information right. And and then the the
Speaker 3: real golden goose is determining whether you can co opt
Speaker 3: someone to knowingly become a spy. As that's the multi
Speaker 3: level marketing.
Speaker 2: Then you got to you've made a new asset. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I understand what you know.
Speaker 3: It's weird. I hate how accurate the MLM comparison is.
Speaker 3: But no, this is where the FBI and their statement
Speaker 3: references a precedent we talked about in previous episode, the
Speaker 3: Cambridge five.
Speaker 2: Ah, yes, the Cambridge five.
Speaker 4: Perhaps the most famous example of this tactic can be
Speaker 4: found in the Cambridge five.
Speaker 2: This took place in Great Britain.
Speaker 4: Soviet intelligence talent spotters like you're referring to Ben. This
Speaker 4: is from the FBI themselves, by the way verbatim with
Speaker 4: you know, styling on it a little bit. These talent
Speaker 4: spotters were able to recruit Cambridge University students in the
Speaker 4: nineteen thirties, including futures by Kim Philby, who would later
Speaker 4: rise to power in the British government and becomes Soviet
Speaker 4: operatives during World War II and into the nineteen fifties.
Speaker 4: So this, yeah, this group of Cambridge students collectively would
Speaker 4: go on to become Soviet assets.
Speaker 3: And they functioned to your point for so long successfully
Speaker 3: and we still I remember we were talking about this
Speaker 3: earlier and you started calling it the Cambridge plus or
Speaker 3: minus five.
Speaker 2: Well that's because, like I think there were more.
Speaker 4: Five was just referring to the concept of it. But
Speaker 4: there were some that are like undocumented or rather have
Speaker 4: not been publicly named.
Speaker 3: Yeah, what do we say? They started as the Cambridge four.
Speaker 3: They found like a.
Speaker 4: Ska band, doesn't it, Like wearing rude boy shoes and
Speaker 4: like skanking, you know, to saxophone music.
Speaker 3: I you know, I oh my sky years, your sky years?
Speaker 2: Ben Bowl in the sky years? Did you have checkerboard pants?
Speaker 2: Dance that you don't have dance?
Speaker 4: I want to sometimes though in the public if anybody
Speaker 4: isn't old like us and doesn't know what that is.
Speaker 4: It's a dance move associated with ska music where you
Speaker 4: kind of scissor your arms and legs sort of back
Speaker 4: and forth in different directions, with kind of a cool
Speaker 4: swagger to it, right, Like it's I always thought it
Speaker 4: was cool, but now, looking back kind.
Speaker 2: Of looks ridiculous.
Speaker 3: Did you did you have a scoff face?
Speaker 2: Not really.
Speaker 4: I was in a punk band for a while, and
Speaker 4: I did wear I remember going to a thrift store
Speaker 4: with my older than me punk friends and getting my
Speaker 4: first pair of thrifted like punk type outfit, you know,
Speaker 4: And it was like the pants were old man golf
Speaker 4: pants kind of, but they were absolutely like I had
Speaker 4: a tartan kind of pattern on them. And then I
Speaker 4: had some Doc Martins and I think I wore a
Speaker 4: dog collar for a hot minute.
Speaker 2: There bn not gonna lie time.
Speaker 3: Nice And you know, it's a good memory to have, right.
Speaker 4: I think these photos floating around out there somewhere, maybe
Speaker 4: I'll try to find a few and show you, guys.
Speaker 3: And that will take careful planning. The Feds were also
Speaker 3: all about careful planning. They didn't that.
Speaker 2: Was a stretch band.
Speaker 3: But I stretch I get that.
Speaker 2: I appreciate this.
Speaker 3: Yes, they're they were intensely planned. It seems counterintuitive to say, Okay,
Speaker 3: we know these folks, right, we know their intent. We
Speaker 3: know that they are actively doing stuff or they're sleeper
Speaker 3: agents and they may be activated at some point. So
Speaker 3: why did they hold off on arresting them?
Speaker 2: Oh, but you need to answered your own question.
Speaker 4: And I think it's like, you know, we we buy
Speaker 4: it our time, We watched and see what they know
Speaker 4: and what they find out, who they have access to,
Speaker 4: and in doing that, you know, we could learn a
Speaker 4: lot about maybe our flaws and maybe find some folks
Speaker 4: on our side.
Speaker 2: Who are you know, need to be rooted out. Because again,
Speaker 2: the whole.
Speaker 4: Red Scare McCarthy ism thing, I think that's what most
Speaker 4: people think about when they think about this era. But
Speaker 4: to your point, Ben, I mean, the folks that aren't
Speaker 4: just out gabbing to the public and making a big
Speaker 4: witch hunt like McCarthy, They were having to deal with
Speaker 4: actual effects, you know, sleeper agents and folks that were
Speaker 4: you know, intending to do harm or to compromise the
Speaker 4: integrity of you know, the sovereignty of the United States.
Speaker 3: And we don't know how long the FBI investigation would
Speaker 3: have lasted, like how long they would stretch it out
Speaker 3: searching for more agents, more evidence. Because they had to
Speaker 3: move quickly, they intercepted we believe they intercepted a phone
Speaker 3: call on June twenty sixth from Anna Chapman to her father,
Speaker 3: veteran KGB agent working in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Speaker 3: And as soon as she confided to her dad that
Speaker 3: she was concerned her cover might get blown, and this
Speaker 3: led the Obama administration to move their timeline up quickly,
Speaker 3: so the next day they arrested everybody. There were a
Speaker 3: couple other members who of the group who were going
Speaker 3: to travel outside of the US, and they didn't want
Speaker 3: them to slip through their clutches.
Speaker 4: And this also reminds me of a plot line and
Speaker 4: another quite excellent in my opinion, at least the first
Speaker 4: season spy show. It's a Taylor Sheridan series called Liones
Speaker 4: with Zoe Saldana, and it really shows the military side
Speaker 4: of this kind of stuf and these kinds of operations.
Speaker 4: And I'm sure there's some hyperboleon there and it's overblown,
Speaker 4: but I very much enjoyed it and found it to
Speaker 4: be an interesting kind of peek behind the curtain about
Speaker 4: the various levels of who knows what when and who
Speaker 4: authorizes what operation and collateral damage and all of that stuff.
Speaker 2: So do recommend Lioness.
Speaker 3: Feels like a very tense job.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4: Nicole Kidman is in it, and it was one of
Speaker 4: the high level of folks in the US government. And
Speaker 4: I think she's really really great in the show. She's
Speaker 4: a handler, like a high level handler of some of
Speaker 4: these basically folks on our side who are turning people
Speaker 4: close to political targets, whether it be girlfriends or wives,
Speaker 4: specifically women in this case that's the Lions program into
Speaker 4: assets in order to gain access to their spouses or
Speaker 4: fathers or what have you.
Speaker 2: And it's very interesting.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I can't wait to check it out. We know
Speaker 3: that this raid, these arrest when they happened, they happened suddenly,
Speaker 3: and the FEDS come down hard. There are raids all
Speaker 3: on the same day in Boston, Yonkers, New Jersey, and
Speaker 3: Northern Virginia. And there was no evidence that these suspected
Speaker 3: agents all knew of each other. The only ones who
Speaker 3: definitely knew of each other were folks who were spouses exactly,
Speaker 3: although that'd be funny if they were both Russian spies
Speaker 3: and they didn't know the other one.
Speaker 2: Was holy crap. That's the plot of mister and Missus Smith.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they're assassins, right, yeah, and they.
Speaker 4: Don't yeah, and they don't know, and they're both sleeper
Speaker 4: agents essentially who are turned against each other. And the
Speaker 4: Donald Glover Mister and Missus Smith TV series excellent.
Speaker 2: Really, really good. A lot of people slept on that.
Speaker 4: Sorry so as The Guardian would later go on to
Speaker 4: describe it as the FBI's biggest known breach of Russian
Speaker 4: intelligence communications. The Feds, uh, this is the Guardian speaking.
Speaker 4: Read there decrypted their intel, read the embedded coded text
Speaker 4: on images posted on the net.
Speaker 2: I love what they're calling it, the net bug.
Speaker 4: Their mobile phones videotaped the passing of bags of cash
Speaker 4: and messages and invisible ink from one agent to another,
Speaker 4: and hacked into their bogus expense claims.
Speaker 5: Ben.
Speaker 2: This is a very two thousand uh sentence.
Speaker 3: They just love the net. Uh huh yeah. Yeah, it's
Speaker 3: like that movie Hackersrite Tensions.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Twenty ten.
Speaker 4: This was written this opinion piece on Russian inspiring Russian
Speaker 4: Spies Bungle was epic by.
Speaker 2: David Hurst from The Guardian.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think we got to shout this one out
Speaker 3: because I in particular love some classic British snark as
Speaker 3: well as it's got directed at us.
Speaker 2: For I couldn't handle it. I would crumble.
Speaker 3: Yeah, like I I can't watch Peep Show without pacey uh,
Speaker 3: just because of the snark.
Speaker 4: For some reason, that one does it for me. That
Speaker 4: one's a comfort show for me. But there are certain
Speaker 4: British shows that are just so uncomfortable and awkward that
Speaker 4: it just makes you kind of tense up and like, yeah,
Speaker 4: need to I cover my eyes at cringe like I
Speaker 4: would a horror movie sometimes.
Speaker 2: I don't know if you felt that.
Speaker 3: Yes, yeah, And I've seen horrible, horrific things in real
Speaker 3: life and dealt with those as they came. But for
Speaker 3: some reason, watching David Mitchell yet again sabotage a romantic
Speaker 3: relationship is just horrific to me. It's horrid.
Speaker 2: I'm with you, I get I get where you're coming from.
Speaker 5: That.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Britain. Well yeah.
Speaker 4: In the review of the Spy Group's methods, they refer
Speaker 4: to the tactics as being amateurish refer to one skin
Speaker 4: as in the title is bungling on a massive scale.
Speaker 4: You know when I say, I say bring back the
Speaker 4: word bungled, bungling, nobody says bungling anymore.
Speaker 2: I like it. It has a certain new mommy to it.
Speaker 3: Let's make it a noun. I think that's quite a bungle.
Speaker 2: What a bungle?
Speaker 4: Yeah, one of my favorite bands is mister Bungle, so
Speaker 4: I'm with you. They go on to have a spiring
Speaker 4: uncovered before they could actually do any serious spying is
Speaker 4: doubly embarrassing.
Speaker 3: Ooh, the snark that's cold. That's cold, So.
Speaker 2: It's both cold and it burns.
Speaker 3: Yes, yeah, icy hot.
Speaker 5: This is.
Speaker 3: Again, as we'll see, it is in step with the
Speaker 3: FBI's official line. Right, we caught them before something terrible
Speaker 3: would have happened. So what happens to these folks now?
Speaker 3: The one guy in Cyprus, he escapes. The other ten
Speaker 3: are in US custody. They're busted, and Reuter's reports on
Speaker 3: July seventh, twenty ten, just a few days after the arrest,
Speaker 3: Russia and the US hatch a prisoner swap deal, the
Speaker 3: biggest of its kind since nineteen eighty six, we're trading
Speaker 3: our people back and forth.
Speaker 4: So the ten individuals are arrested as part of the
Speaker 4: illegals program at age as well would be deported to
Speaker 4: Russia in exchange for individuals whom Russia convicted of espionage
Speaker 4: on behalf of the US and the UK. And like
Speaker 4: you said, man, this is something that has often done,
Speaker 4: these prisoner exchanges. It is a bargaining chip type situation
Speaker 4: in the world of tradecraft. It's it's yeah, and it works,
Speaker 4: but it is also interesting because it's sort of it's
Speaker 4: sort of like a no harm, no foul kind of
Speaker 4: thing almost, But it's weird. I don't know how I'm
Speaker 4: not describing it right, but yeah, you're right, it's super
Speaker 4: it's super weird, and it can make it feel as
Speaker 4: though all the all the work to bust these folks has.
Speaker 3: Come to nothing exactly.
Speaker 2: That's what I was butting up against. Thanks man.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, it's it can feel that way. But we
Speaker 3: have to remember, you know, by the time these ten
Speaker 3: spies get back to Russia, they've been thoroughly interrogated. They're
Speaker 3: squeezed dry like a lemon. You know. If the US
Speaker 3: thought there was more to be gained from them the
Speaker 3: deal would not have occurred. And another another little pro
Speaker 3: tip folks, especially during the War on Terror, it's interesting
Speaker 3: to go back and read through stories of prison escapes
Speaker 3: in Pakistan and parts of the stands, because not every time,
Speaker 3: but more often than you might think, those prison escapes
Speaker 3: were manufactured so that we didn't have to tell the
Speaker 3: American public that we were letting some bad guys go
Speaker 3: as part of a larger deal.
Speaker 4: You need a lie, a deception, a prevarication.
Speaker 2: Now it's Joe, sir. I don't mean to be jaded
Speaker 2: about it.
Speaker 4: It's just kind of like, this is why we do
Speaker 4: this show, y'all. I think it's really hard to believe
Speaker 4: at face.
Speaker 2: Value what any government says.
Speaker 4: Ever, whatever the administration, whatever the political climate, it's just
Speaker 4: it's it's a game that's built on a mountain of
Speaker 4: bullet Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and that is a broad brush that we are
Speaker 3: more than comfortable painting with because it has never not
Speaker 3: been true broad brush of bullet. Right. So there are
Speaker 3: happy endings for some of these spies. Anna Chapman in
Speaker 3: particular becomes a sort of celebrity. She heads a youth council,
Speaker 3: She becomes a model at fashion shows. She even runs
Speaker 3: her own TV series. Things worked out well for Chapping.
Speaker 2: Did they go to like the premiere of the Americans?
Speaker 3: That'd be amazing, But I don't think they're I don't
Speaker 3: think they're traveling back to the States.
Speaker 2: Okay, fair enough, Yeah, that would have been cool.
Speaker 4: Though you don't make a special dispensation for an appearance.
Speaker 3: So it's a close call, and you know, the FBI
Speaker 3: considers it a success story. They busted the conspiracy. There
Speaker 3: are some great in depth reports about this fantastic documentary.
Speaker 3: In this case, it seems that the good guys won,
Speaker 3: but that's not quite the end because the discovery of
Speaker 3: a group like this, even if they were a bungle,
Speaker 3: it leads us to some disturbing implications. I mean, no,
Speaker 3: we only caught these folks because they screwed up.
Speaker 2: That's right.
Speaker 4: And again, we just did an episode about this kind
Speaker 4: of rash of spies getting caught and spies screwing up
Speaker 4: our spy, our spies getting works.
Speaker 2: What's going on?
Speaker 4: To your point, band, the implications there can be pretty disturbing.
Speaker 4: This means there's a non zero chance, as you put it,
Speaker 4: ben of a more competent network out there potentially the
Speaker 4: one that didn't get caught, and that's part of why
Speaker 4: the FBI isn't exactly being entirely forthright about how they
Speaker 4: went about identifying this ring, which totally makes sense.
Speaker 3: Yeah, because you don't want the other if there is
Speaker 3: another gang out there, you don't want them to know
Speaker 3: how you catch your rabbits.
Speaker 2: You call this a cell, right all the cell.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they they definitely were grouped under the same umbrella
Speaker 3: in Moscow, but they did not you know, they didn't
Speaker 3: have group meetings with all times.
Speaker 2: Isn't that the point?
Speaker 4: Like a cell, they're they're siloed by nature, they don't
Speaker 4: know about each other, but they're kind of doing the
Speaker 4: same thing and it's sort of a numbers game, right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, Yeah, they're decentralized, which is a really smart
Speaker 3: thing to do. And second, this might disturb our international listeners.
Speaker 3: These tactics and these groups are not limited to the US.
Speaker 3: I know Russia has done this in the UK. They're
Speaker 3: messing around in Australia. People are trying to get in
Speaker 3: where they fit in. They're likely occurring around the world
Speaker 3: right now, and some just haven't been caught because in
Speaker 3: a very real way, to our Russian friends. The Cold
Speaker 3: War never ended.
Speaker 2: No, it didn't.
Speaker 4: And can I just say Ben that your name on
Speaker 4: our video chat today is Ben exclamation mark, which you
Speaker 4: would say just as Ben, And.
Speaker 2: You're making me feel that way today.
Speaker 4: Very exclamatory and excited to be talking about this topic
Speaker 4: with you, as dark as it may be, and the
Speaker 4: implications being what they are, and you know, as rough
Speaker 4: as things might feel out there for some of us,
Speaker 4: many of us in the United States, it's good to
Speaker 4: know that you're in a good mood and you have
Speaker 4: my back.
Speaker 2: Well.
Speaker 3: Who knew that a small piece of punctuation could make
Speaker 3: such a positive difference. Yeah, you and I have had
Speaker 3: candidly pretty rough weeks and we're both very happy for Friday,
Speaker 3: and folks, we're so happy that you took the time
Speaker 3: to join us. We will be returning in the future
Speaker 3: with episodes on things like diplomatic immunity or shock doctrine,
Speaker 3: and then we'll have some paranormal mixed in there too.
Speaker 3: Or takeaway here though to your earlier question, is our
Speaker 3: spies getting worse technology getting better? These conspiracies are real,
Speaker 3: but the same technology that makes it easier to track
Speaker 3: sleeper spies can also make it easier for them to
Speaker 3: hide and communicate. There's a new world order in the
Speaker 3: realm of tradecraft. So tell us if you're a child spy,
Speaker 3: tell us what kind of sleeper agent you would be, Like,
Speaker 3: what would your cover job be?
Speaker 2: Or a sleepy agent?
Speaker 3: You know, a sleepy agent.
Speaker 2: Do you sleep with a stuffed animal?
Speaker 3: I do.
Speaker 2: I'm not gonna lie. I love a stuffed animal. My
Speaker 2: house is full of them.
Speaker 4: I had a house cleaner come over once and ask
Speaker 4: me if I had lots of small children.
Speaker 2: I don't. They're mine.
Speaker 3: Good, draw the line in the sand there, no, and
Speaker 3: let them know what's what. In the meantime, we want
Speaker 3: you to let us know what's what. We love your
Speaker 3: input on this. We'd love to hear your stories and
Speaker 3: you know, build out your sleeper agent or sleepy agent persona.
Speaker 3: Tell us all about it online via email or on
Speaker 3: the phone.
Speaker 2: It's all right.
Speaker 4: You can find us at the handle conspiracy Stuff, where
Speaker 4: we exist on all the social media platforms of note,
Speaker 4: I suppose that is conspiracy Stuff on x FKA, Twitter,
Speaker 4: on YouTube where we have video content color for your
Speaker 4: perusing enjoyment, and on Facebook, where we have our Facebook group.
Speaker 2: Here's where it gets crazy.
Speaker 4: Start your own sleeper cell with your fellow Here's where
Speaker 4: it gets crazies on Instagram and TikTok.
Speaker 2: However, we're conspiracy stuff show and.
Speaker 3: Should you engage with telephonic devices, why not give us
Speaker 3: a call? We are one eight three three std WYTK.
Speaker 3: What do you call? You will hear a hopefully familiar voice,
Speaker 3: and then you'll hear a beep like so beep that
Speaker 3: means you're off to the races three minutes. Those minutes
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Speaker 3: give us your real name or cool nickname. Most importantly,
Speaker 3: just let us know if we can use your name
Speaker 3: and or message on the air. If you prefer to
Speaker 3: communicate via email, we have some good news for you.
Speaker 3: We're available twenty four hours a night, seven evenings a
Speaker 3: week at our good old fashioned email address.
Speaker 4: We are conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 2: Stuff they don't want you to know is a production
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